Pebble Returns with Index 01: A $75 AI-Powered Smart Ring for Swift Voice Notes
After rebooting teh Pebble smartwatch brand, founder Eric Migicovsky is expanding his company’s device lineup with a new smart wearable: an AI-powered smart ring known as Index 01. Named for the finger where the ring is meant to be worn, the new $75 ring isn’t a competitor to always-on, always-listening AI devices, but instead offers a way to record quick notes and reminders with a press of a button on the ring’s side.
AI comes into play via the open source, speech-to-text, and AI models that run locally on your smartphone through the Pebble mobile app. Importantly, the ring only records when the button is pressed and held, preventing surreptitious recording.
[Image of pebble Index 01 Ring – Credit: Core Devices LLC]
The stainless steel ring is water-resistant to 1 meter,making it suitable for everyday activities like showering,washing hands,and doing dishes,but should be removed for swimming.
However, the ring is not a fitness tracker or sleep monitor, and doesn’t record health data.it’s designed as a focused tool, not an all-in-one AI assistant.
“I’m not trying to build some AI assistant thing,” Migicovsky told TechCrunch. “I build things that solve one main problem, and they solve it really well,” he explains. “I think of [the ring] as external memory for my brain…that’s what this is. It’s always with you.”
The ring prioritizes reliability and privacy,storing all recordings on your phone,not in the cloud,and requires no subscription.
Migicovsky’s ring enters a growing market for voice-note wearables, competing with devices like Sandbar’s Stream Ring, which offers a similar function but with a subscription model.
## This Ring Lets You record Your Thoughts With a Squeeze
The idea of capturing fleeting thoughts is now a reality with Core Devices’ Index01 ring. This unassuming piece of hardware allows you to record audio with a simple squeeze, offering a novel way to document ideas, reminders, or anything else that pops into your head.
The ring supports more than 100 languages and has a bit of on-device memory for times when you’re not in Bluetooth range of your device, where the recording is ultimately saved and transcribed. (The raw audio is retained, too, in case the speech-to-text is garbled due to loud background noise.)
If you own a Pebble smartwatch or one from another brand, your recorded thought can even appear on the watch’s screen so you can verify it’s correct.
The ring works with Pebble’s mobile app, which offers notes and reminders, but can optionally integrate with your phone’s calendaring system, too, or other apps, like Notion. And the ring’s software is open source, which makes it hackable by the community, the founder points out.Because of it’s open nature, the ring’s button is already programmable. In addition to the press-and-hold gesture, you can program the ring to do other things with a single or double press, like play or pause your music or control the shutter on your phone’s camera. You could use it to send a message through the worldwide chat app Beeper, which Migicovsky also created, or you could add your own voice actions via MCP.
